Of course, killing the daughter of your enemy is a barbaric act, with no moral or legal justification. For that matter, setting out to kill anyone is wrong, or at least so fraught with cloudy moral calculation that it should be avoided, pretty much at all costs.

The problem is, we don’t really believe either of those things. We collectively kill all the time, under claim of right, through the actions of our government both here and elsewhere. We say one thing and do another. It isn’t nuts to notice; it’s nuts not to.

It should not be surprising at all that the Dorner episode resonates among the disaffected. Declaring war and identifying your targets in advance has an air of honor to it. It’s still wrong, but it’s not the same as the sick, random murderous rampages we have seen too much of in recent months.

But the media are not “truth vigilantes”, they just spin it in their usual fashion. One wonders if they will ever tire of referring to any written explanation by some high profile but officially unapproved killer as “rambling” or a “rant”, adjectives that could just as easily be directed at the State of the Union Address but never are.

The reporting of these kinds of events is so heavy-handedly skewed in exactly the same way, every single time, that the reporting itself has become part of the narrative of these events. It would be tiresome, except for the tragedy that real people are suffering real harm and even getting really, really killed.

That, and also that it helps set the stage for the next one. Because for even remotely thoughtful people, the hyper-spinning of such events precisely so as to take serious moral reasoning off the table is transparent. What occurs in the end is the very unsatisfying result that those with superior manpower and weaponry prevail, tell the story they want told and all official mouthpieces go along. Dissent is not permitted. The truth of the matter counts for nothing.

In other words, the episode has been a grotesque exercise in power worship both by Dorner and by the official response, which included deliberately incinerating Dorner in the end, and then lying about that. The two sides have been almost morally indistinguishable in the willingness to use violence to prevail.

But in truth telling, the edge would definitely go to Dorner.

The next monster has probably already taken note: it’s all about who has power over whom. That’s what we are teaching, and we reap what we sow.

2 responses to “Christopher Dorner And Other Monsters Of Our Creation (Updated)”

The epic manifesto that Dorner left was material for extensive examination and interpretation from a psychological perspective, and might have been the basis for extended, intelligent and unbiased TV debates among multiple suitably qualified professionals. Despite the heinous nature of the killings he perpetrated it would be intellectually dishonest, as you say, to pretend that his thoughts did not give great insight into how the suppression of truth and the unfair treatment of someone who is highly invested in uncovering that truth might dangerously affect that person’s psyche. I came across no analysis or dispassionate interpretation of the kind.
The CNN documentary, made hurriedly before he was even located and “accidentally” incinerated, included a brief interview with an old college friend who attested in a tone of sad resignation to Dorner’s strong belief in truth as a concept, and his radar-preparedness to confront any instance of hypocrisy or bigotry. Apart from this potentially ripe launching pad, of course not followed up on, there was an interview with a forensic psychiatrist who – surprise, surprise – was an “ex-FBI” employee. He gave a perfunctory and contemptuous summing up of the manifesto, trotting out the usual ubiquitously applied “diagnosis” of “narcissism” – oh, boy, am I sick of hearing that DSM category reduced to pop psychology that everyone “understands”.
This was just one more example of how the media, the public and the justice system are only about condemning and punishing, and have no interest whatsoever in understanding the psychological mechanisms that catalyze criminal acts, nor, more importantly, how societal values and behaviours create material and psychodynamic circumstances that tip some people over into making desperate and unfortunate decisions.